


Some Observations Upon The Segregation Of The Queen

by flawedamythyst



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Inaccurate Bee-Keeping, M/M, Mild Peril, retirement fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4054651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a gang of criminals come after an elderly Holmes and Watson in search of revenge, Holmes takes an unusual step to protect Watson.</p>
<p>Written for ACD_Holmesfest, for Mistyzeo, and kindly betaed by Emmyangua.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Observations Upon The Segregation Of The Queen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistyzeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo/gifts).



I am long past the time in my life when I am able to be patient about being woken in the middle of the night. That night, when Holmes gently shook my shoulder and I cracked open an eyelid to find all still dark and quiet, I let out a groan.

“Holmes, I am sleeping.”

I shut my eyes again and clung resolutely to the blankets.

“Watson, wake up,” he hissed.

“Go back to sleep,” I mumbled at him. “If you are so desperate for release, you shall have to provide it for yourself.”

Holmes used to wake me in the middle of the night in order to engage in a few minutes of passion reasonably regularly when we were younger men, but we had largely fallen out of the habit after moving to our retirement cottage. It had been a feature of our life in 221B because of the difficulty of finding time during the day when we could hide away from the world for long enough to enjoy such things.

The cottage had changed all that. In the first few months of living there, we had become rather addicted to the freedom of not having any live-in servants or close neighbours, not to mention not having the constant stream of clients, policemen and other visitors. We had intimate relations in every part of the cottage at all hours of the day, whenever one or both of us was inspired and our housekeeper wasn't present. Indeed, we became so relaxed about such things that one sunny afternoon six months after we moved to Sussex, we took a picnic to a wooded copse and made love on a blanket, the sun shining down on our skin as we moved together. It was a terrible risk, but that only made the joy of it more profound.

But I digress. At the point of our lives that I am writing about, we were rather older and not as prone to sudden sparks of passion. Or, at least, not so prone to them that I was interested in waking up in the middle of the night in order to indulge Holmes.

Holmes did not let me return to sleep. “Watson, there are several men attempting to break in through the living room window,” he said, speaking in a half-tone.

“Well, one of them may oblige you then,” I said, before my brain woke up enough to fully process the words. I turned towards him. “Holmes, are you serious?”

“I can hear them,” he said. “Get up and put your dressing gown and your shoes on. I am going to investigate.”

He slid out of the bed and disappeared noiselessly from the room. I struggled to sit up, straining my ears for whatever had woken him, without success.

Holmes's senses had always been far more acute than mine and as age had crept in that had only become more true. My left ear in particular had become increasingly muffled over the last few years. Holmes had acquired the habit of staying to the right side of me, even when I was still stoutly denying that there was anything wrong with me and instead claiming that everyone else had inexplicably started to speak more quietly.

Combined with the increased stiffness in my leg, it made me feel very old, particularly as Holmes had managed to age without any significant loss of his senses. I consoled myself with the truth that my hair had remained thick, whereas his hairline had retreated steadily, year by year, until there was little more than a narrow band of it surrounding the dome of his head.

I have gone off-track again. Where was I? Ah, yes, getting dressed.

I put my dressing gown on and then sat on the bed to pull on my shoes. I was still fumbling with the laces when Holmes returned, carrying the ladder that we used to access the attic - not that either of us had been limber enough to make it up there in several years. 

Holmes shut the bedroom door softly behind himself.

“It is far worse than I feared,” he said in a voice so quiet that I had to strain to hear the words. “It is Buster Woodburn and his sons.”

“Who?” I asked, and was instantly shushed.

It was only a temporary lapse of memory. Holmes teases me far too often about my moments of forgetfulness, which is rather unfair. These things come back to me eventually, given enough time, and it's not as if he is immune to his own ageing memory. He spent nearly half an hour yesterday searching for his glasses case before I found it for him, slipped under his pillow for some unknown reason.

Buster Woodburn was one of the last criminals that Holmes was responsible for incarcerating. In fact, he was the very last if you discount German spies, which I tend to. I have no interest in thinking about two years of being left behind with no contact from Holmes at all, in the same way that I don't think of those three terrible years after our visit to Meiringen. 

Woodburn and his two sons were responsible for a series of violent burglaries that gripped the countryside surrounding our cottage with fear about four years after we moved there. The local police were incapable of finding their hide-out and so came to Holmes to beg his assistance. He told them he was retired and sent them away, just as he had every time they'd turned up at our door, hats in hand and pleading expressions on their faces.

“They will never learn to use their brains if I bail them out every time there's the slightest difficulty,” Holmes said to me. “Besides which, I am _retired_. A man should be allowed to grow old without being constantly badgered.”

I agreed with him at the time, but when the Woodburns next struck, it was our housekeeper's cousin who was targeted. They broke three of his windows, took every valuable item he had, hit him around the head and left him for dead. After that, I was the one to talk Holmes into assisting the police. He tracked them down and the whole crew were arrested and sent off to prison for a good long while.

The case wasn't the kind that would have been particularly interesting to write about, so I had largely forgotten the incident by the time they were released and came after us for revenge.

“We must escape,” said Holmes. “They all have knives and clearly mean us no good. We'll have to go out the window.”

He crossed the room and opened the curtains while I gaped at him. We had been sleeping on the first floor in what was nominally Holmes's bedroom, although I had slept every night since we had retired in it beside him. The bedroom designated as mine had the true purpose of storing some of our less-read books and preventing the illegal state of our true relations to be obvious to visitors. Our housekeeper didn't arrive until after we had breakfasted, by which time one or other of us had gone in to make sure the sheets were rumpled enough to appear slept in. It was a tiresome necessity but far easier than it had been in 221B, where we used to take it in turns to stay in the other's bed, and then creep back to our own in the early morning, before the maid came to light the fires and provide us with hot water. I am prepared to swear that if it hadn't been for the inconvenience of creeping through a sleeping house in the dark every morning, we would have put retirement off for another few years. As it was, we were both more than ready to wake up beside each other every morning, without the constant fear of discovery.

I'm rambling again. It is probably a good thing this is never going to be seen by an editor or so much would be crossed out as irrelevant that very few words would be left and I would be forced to throw in some back story for the Woodburns in order to make it long enough to be published.

“Holmes, there is no way I will be able to climb out the window,” I protested.

Holmes eased up the sash, letting in the cold night air, and glanced down at what he intended to be our route. “The lock will not hold them long. The youngest Woodburn is an excellent cracksman. I'm sure you can make it down if the alternative is a bloody murder.”

He lowered the ladder out of the window, leaning right over to set it on the ground. I joined him at the window and looked out at the impossible path in front of me. The ladder was not long enough to come all the way up the window, so I would have to somehow negotiate a drop of nearly a metre before I even attempted the rungs. “My leg will not take it. You go and fetch help, and I'll hide.”

Holmes grasped my shoulder. “I will not leave you behind to be stabbed by a family of thugs like the Woodburns. If necessary, I will carry you.”

There was a faint clatter from downstairs. I looked again at the ladder and steeled myself. I had no real desire to be murdered either.

“Come on,” hissed Holmes.

“You go first,” I said. “You can catch me if I fall.”

Holmes managed a grunt of laughter. “I think you over-estimate my strength,” he said. “Or else you under-estimate your weight.”

Nevertheless, he did pull himself over the windowsill first, lowering himself down to where the ladder started with a grimace and then gesturing for me to follow him.

It is a wonder that we didn't both fall and break our necks. My legs do not bend as they used to, and merely getting over the windowsill proved more difficult than I like to admit. Holmes helped me as much as he could, but his position was far from secure. Once I was balanced on the windowsill, he was obliged to go down the ladder in order to make room for me. I had to make it down to the first rung without assistance, which nearly defeated me.

“Come on, Watson,” hissed Holmes. “An old campaigner like yourself won't let a ladder defeat him, surely?”

I was finding the exertion too much to glare at him properly for that comment. I am still not sure where I found the strength from, but I did manage the feat, with all my joints burning with pain in a way that I knew would take a day or two to recover from.

Holmes descended the rest of the way and then stood below me to hold the ladder secure as I gingerly picked my stiff, aching way down. Inside the house, I could hear footsteps starting to move through the rooms and knew the villains were hunting for us.

“Quickly now,” said Holmes, and he took my hand to lead me through the back garden. In the sunshine, it was a riot of flowers and plants, arranged in large beds separated by winding paths. In the dark, it was a mine field. I lost all sense of where the paths were and just stumbled after Holmes, through larkspur and hollyhocks, crushing lily of the valley beneath my shoes.

Holmes and I had had several long arguments about that garden when we first moved in. He had wanted to plant only one type of flower at a time and rip it all out every year in order to plant another, as some sort of honey-related experiment. I firmly put my foot down, refusing to let him make our garden so monotonous and unwilling to engage in the amount of work that would be necessary to change it every spring. Holmes had sulked, but I stood firm, and in the end we planted a mix of flowers, all of them carefully vetted by Holmes to make sure that they would create a good blend for his honey.

Given that Holmes himself was the one to suggest that we get a gardener to deal with it after a couple of years of us doing all the work, I suspect he came around to my point of view, although he never told me so. Well, of course he didn't. Age has only increased his stubborn refusal to acknowledge that he is ever wrong.

One thing we did agree on, and which has become our favourite feature of the garden, is the bench that looks out over the flowers and right down to the edge of the cliff, where we sit and drink tea together on days when the weather will permit it.

Writing this account will take me a week if I keep going off on tangents like this. Come on, Watson, stick to the point.

There was a cry of dismay from the cottage as our pursuers discovered their prey had fled.

“Quick!” hissed Holmes, pulling me the last few feet to the edge of the garden, out through the gate into the meadow behind our house. We crouched behind the low hedge, out of sight, and I desperately tried to regain my breath, massaging my aching thigh and wishing I had half the stamina I had had when I was a young man. The truth was that the climb and the dash across the garden had exhausted me. If they continued after us, I had no idea how I was to keep going without holding Holmes back.

“I know you're out there, Holmes!” bellowed a rough voice. “Running like a snake! Me and my boys are coming for you!”

Holmes cursed under his breath.

“Too much to hope they'd just give up and go home,” I said, trying to remain calm.

“I find myself suddenly regretting how isolated our home is,” said Holmes. “Once they start to search for us, there is far too little cover.”

Our cottage stood alone on the cliff above the bay. In addition to the cottage and its immediate garden, we owned the meadow we were currently crouching in, which stretched all the way to the cliff edge. The only features it contained that were higher than a dandelion were Holmes's beehives and the tiny shed he used to store his bee-keeping apparatus.

“We could hide among the rocks on the beach,” I suggested, doubtfully.

We both enjoy swimming in the rock pools that lie at the foot of the cliff. Holmes had claimed himself to be uninterested in such things when we first arrived and insisted on just sitting at the edge of the pools with a book while I bathed. More than once he got dreadfully sunburned.

In the end, I lost my temper at his insistence that he wouldn't swim even once because it was a pursuit for children, and ended up throwing him in the water fully clothed. I'll never forget the fury on his face as he came up for air, or the way it creased into amusement as he joined in my laughter. I dove in after him and he pulled me under the water. We shared a kiss that was probably ill-advised, given that we were not the only ones who used that part of the beach for swimming.

After that, he joined me for a swim every morning. It was only months later than he confided the real reason that he had been against the idea.

“I don't think you truly appreciate just how you look when you are soaking wet and dressed in nothing but a swimming costume,” he told me. “I did not think that if I were also wearing so little and bathing beside you, I would be able to keep my hands to myself.”

More than once he wasn't able to, but then, neither was I. There is something irresistible about the way water streams down his skin.

If I continue this train of thought, this document will become far racier than I intended. I must pull myself back to the Woodburns.

Holmes shook his head at my suggestion. “In this dark one or both of us would turn an ankle and be easy prey for them. We are not the agile young men we used to be. No, we must find help. Three men, armed only with knives: too much for our old bones, but if we could just get to the school, they would not risk an entanglement with any larger numbers.”

He tugged my hand and we set off across the meadow in the direction of The Gables, he taking great strides while I limped behind, pain throbbing through every muscle. We were barely halfway when I was obliged to stop him.

“I cannot,” I gasped. “Holmes, you go on ahead, I will follow you.”

Holmes turned to me. “I will not leave you!” he hissed.

There was a bang and we turned to see the back door of our cottage crash open and the silhouettes of men pouring out of it. They had turned on our kitchen light I noted, wondering why that seemed a more personal invasion of our domain than a trespass in the dark would have been. What they did not seem to have was any kind of torch or other light, so Holmes and I were invisible to them for the moment, hidden by the dark of the night.

“Then we will both die here,” I said. “Go, Holmes. I'll – I'll hide in your shed. You can fetch Stackhurst and the other masters and return for me.”

He hesitated, clearly torn between his desire to see me safe and the reality of the situation. I ignored him, dragging my hand from his and setting off stubbornly for the shed. It was a pitiful hiding place, but it was all there was.

He was by my side again within a moment. “Very well,” he said. “But I will not leave you unguarded. Get in the shed and put my gloves on.”

Behind us, the men were bashing through our garden, calling out insults and destroying our plants. It was clear that they couldn't see our shapes moving across the meadow. That they had turned on our lights was working in our favour, as it had destroyed their night-vision. I thanked God that both Holmes and I favoured dark colours for our dressing gowns.

Holmes moved to one of his hives as I opened the shed and squeezed myself into it, wincing as I bent my legs to rest on the floor. His bee-keeping raiment was on a small shelf to one side, and I picked up his thick gloves and started to pull them on. I had no idea why Holmes had suggested it, or what his plan was, but you don't spend decades as the close companion and partner of Sherlock Holmes without learning to just do as you're told in such situations.

When Holmes straightened from the hive and turned to me, he was surrounded by bees.

“Holmes!” I protested, and was ignored.

“Stay very still,” he said, slowly walking towards me. “And hold out your hands.”

I did so, and was rewarded by him slipping something small and delicate between them. “It's the Queen,” he said. “Keep her close and safe, and the others will stay with you. As long as you don't upset them, they won't hurt you.”

The swarm was already settling all around me, covering my clasped hands and crawling up my arms. Holmes draped his bee-keeper's veil over my head, either as camouflage or as an attempt to keep the bees from my face.

“Get out of here,” I said. If he wasted too much time, he wouldn't be able to get away before the Woodburns gave up on the garden and headed this way.

I could barely see him in the dark of the shed, but I thought he nodded at that. He stepped outside and then hesitated, one hand on the door.

“Go,” I commanded him.

“Stay safe, Watson,” he said, then shut the door on me.

Given the danger, I suppose other couples might have indulged in more sentimental parting words, but there was nothing that either of us could say that the other didn't already know. I saw no sense in repeating information that Holmes already had when all it would do was highlight just how urgent the danger was.

It was pitch-black in the shed with the door shut. The bees were buzzing around in the air, but it didn't take them long to settle down. Most of them landed, either on me or the floor around me, and I sat as still as I could, wary of being stung. I have never had very much interaction with the insects, despite how many years Holmes has devoted to their study. They've never interested me the way they do him.

It is very difficult to keep track of time when you are completely in the dark, surrounded by bees and waiting to be discovered by a group of men who are desperate to murder you, but I think it was only a few minutes before I heard voices outside. It felt like far longer.

“What the hell are these? Is he here?”

“I can't believe we didn't bring torches.”

“Shut up, Trev. You don't think of them either.”

“They're beehives. I don't think even Holmes would hide in them.”

“He might be in this shed, though.”

I tensed. The bees crawling on my shoulders reacted to the movement of my muscles, some of them taking off as the others started to buzz louder. I held myself still with an effort of willpower.

“Stand ready, boys.”

The door was thrown open. A dark shape was silhouetted against the stars of the night sky, but I could make out no details and I doubt he could see anything inside the shed at all.

The bees reacted to the open door with anger, more of them pouring up into the air.

“Christ! The whole bleeding place is full of bees!”

The figure waved his hands violently in front of him, apparently trying to ward the insects off, which I could have told him was a bad idea. The bees grew angrier and headed towards him. There was a sharp cry as at least one stung him and then the door was slammed shut again.

“Nothing in there but bloody bees. Holmes must be an utter nutter.”

“A nutter who's getting away. Come on, he must have gone this way.”

There was the sound of the men moving away and I let myself relax, although my heart was still in my mouth. They were heading in the same direction that Holmes had gone in and I could only hope that he moved fast enough to get to The Gables before they came across him.

It was a terrible situation to be in, even once the bees had settled down again. I forced my mind to stop fixating on the many images of Holmes being caught by the Woodburns and savagely beaten or stabbed to death, and tried to concentrate on happier memories instead.

I had enough of them. My time with Holmes has been blessed with a great deal of pleasure and joy, although it may not seem so to an outside observer. Holmes may come across as cold, but he has never hesitated to make me aware of just how deeply he feels for me, even if he is loathe to ever put it in words. Just the month before the incident I am currently recounting, we had been obliged to spend a whole week confined to the house due to the inclement weather. After a few days of the wet and cold, my leg became even more recalcitrant than normal, until I could do little more than hobble around the cottage, cursing under my breath.

I spent an entire day trapped on the sofa, growing increasingly grumpy, while Holmes scowled out of the window at the rain, clearly wishing to go and check up on his bees. As much as I would like to pretend that our relationship is always purely amicable, I find myself forced to admit that we both became rather short-tempered, and took it out on each other.

Our housekeeper prepares supper for us and then leaves us to it, and she did it with a distinct air of relief on that day. When I attempted to stand up from the sofa to move to the dining table, pain shot down my thigh and I fell back on to the sofa with a curse word.

Holmes raised an eyebrow at me. “It is a good thing that Mrs. Goodman has already left, if you're going to be using that kind of language.”

I shot a glare at him, rubbing at my injury in the hopes of relaxing the muscle enough to make it to the table. “I shall use far worse language at you in a minute.”

Holmes gave me an amused look that went some way to melt my anger. “I look forward to it. I do so enjoy some of the more interesting language that you picked up in the Army.”

I favoured him with a particularly vehement epithet that made him chuckle, then tried to stand again.

“Stay where you are,” said Holmes as I made it most of the way up and winced at the pain. “Tonight, I think dinner shall come to you.”

I gratefully collapsed back again. “Has it come to this? Too much an invalid to make it dinner.”

“Think of it as an unexpected spot of decadence,” said Holmes, putting my plate and cutlery on a tray and then bringing it over to me. He set it in my lap with a flourish. “Bon appetit.”

He gave me a deep bow, then stepped back for his own food.

We ate off our laps, which felt oddly like a picnic, and then Holmes took our trays away and returned with brandy, which I eagerly accepted. He settled beside me on the sofa and gave me one of the piercing, intent looks that used to unsettle me when we first knew each other, but which have now grown almost as dear to me as the man himself.

“The weather is not going to improve for at least a day or two,” he said.

I let out a sigh. “I am aware of that.”

He nodded. “We shall have to find ways to ameliorate the effect on your leg.”

“We could try just cutting the damned thing off,” I suggested.

“I think that would probably only cause more problems.” He put his hands on my thigh, gently, but then with more pressure when I didn't flinch. He felt out the muscle, digging his fingers in with a thoughtful frown until I twitched and sucked in a sharp breath.

“I suppose you will refuse chemical assistance.”

“I have taken everything that I am willing to,” I said. “It would be rather hypocritical of me to indulge in substances that I spent years telling you not to use.”

“The difference is that you are in pain,” Holmes pointed out. I dismissed that. Pain is something I have become accustomed to dealing with, and I did not want to go down the slippery slope of drug dependency at my time of life. I do want to retain some dignity in my old age, after all.

“Very well,” Holmes said, and stood up. “We shall try something else.” He disappeared into the kitchen.

I sat back with a sigh, wondering why I was not more resigned to having to be waited upon when I had spent nearly twice as many years with this injury than I had without it.

Holmes came back some time later with some cloths that he had warmed over the stove, which he placed on my thigh. The relief was immediate. As the heat soaked into my muscles, I let out a sigh of relief that made him smile.

“We're usually wearing far fewer clothes when you make that kind of noise,” he said.

“I can think of a few times when we've been fully clothed,” I said. “That alleyway in Brighton stands out.”

“Yes, that was rather memorable,” he agreed. He set his hands back on my thigh and gently began to massage my muscles again. Combined with the heat from the cloths, his touch began to melt away some of the tightly knotted pain. “Perhaps a similar activity would provide you with some relief from the pain.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Do you think your knees can take it?”

As I had hoped, he took my words as a challenge. He moved off the sofa to settle between my legs on the floor.

Perhaps I shouldn't detail the rest of that evening here. I shall just say that he spent a considerable amount of time thoroughly distracting me from my leg, and that it turned out his knees were more than capable of it. Holmes has never been one to let physical limitations prevent him from pursuing a goal.

The next morning, it was still raining. Holmes woke before me and brought me up some tea while I was still in bed, which was an unprecedented act of kindness that only made sense when I realised just how bored he was after days of being stuck inside.

“Perhaps there'll be a lull later and I'll be able to dash out to the hives,” he said, looking out of the window at the dense wall of water falling from the sky.

“Perhaps,” I said. The look he gave me made it clear that my tone had given away my scepticism.

He helped me downstairs to the sofa and found me a blanket to drape over my legs that made me feel every year of my age. He brought me my breakfast and a hot water bottle that I hadn't known we owned, at which point I began to wonder if my companion was suffering from some sort of brain injury.

“Do you want a hot bath later? A nice soak would probably help your leg. I could see if we have any lavender oil.”

I set my plate down on my lap and gave him a stern look. “What is going on, Holmes?”

He endeavoured to look innocent. It is not a look that suits him. “What do you mean, my dear?”

“Stop,” I said. “Explain.”

Holmes gave a put-upon sigh. “Can a man not do a few nice things for his beloved companion without-?”

I glared at him and he stopped talking.

“Oh, fine,” he said, sitting down in his armchair. “I thought it might make the day go quicker if I spent it as someone else. I don't get to exercise my acting skills much at all these days, other than when I have to pretend not to have heard all Stackhurst's rowing tales hundreds of times already.”

I frowned. “And you decided Florence Nightingale was the best choice?”

Holmes gave a shrug. “It seemed best to find a role that would fit with our current circumstances.”

I winced at that. “Have I really reached the age when you think what I need most is a nursemaid?”

“No,” he said instantly, sitting upright. “No, not at all. Don't be an idiot, Watson. I just thought you deserved someone with a greater capacity for that sort of caring, rather than a grumpy old man who bickers with you.”

“Your kind of caring has always been just fine for me,” I said. “I can't imagine that ever changing.”

He smiled at me, but I could see the discontent and restlessness behind it. The rain was causing me physical pain, but it was no less real than the mental distress Holmes felt at being kept confined.

I finished my breakfast while Holmes brooded over a cup of tea and I had come to a decision by the time Mrs Goodman had arrived for the day.

“Bring me a pack of cards,” I told Holmes. “I feel like Rummy.”

“I loathe card games,” Holmes reminded me without moving.

“I don't intend to play with you,” I said. “I'm going to play with a whole range of characters. Shall we start with Captain Basil? I've missed seeing him about the place.”

Holmes brightened and stood up. When he came back, he was carrying a pack of cards and wearing an old sailor's hat that I hadn't realised he still owned.

“Better batten down your hatches,” he said as he sat down. “Old Captain Basil ain't going to be bested by no landlubber.”

I spent the next hour or so playing card games with the most over-the-top rendition of a swarthy seadog that I have ever experienced, while Mrs. Goodman went about her business and tried to pretend she didn't think we should be in Bedlam.

After an hour or so of increasingly ludicrous tales of ship-board life, I fixed my gaze on Holmes. “Time for a change. I think I should like to play with Padre Ricci for a while.”

Holmes let out a half-laugh. He shook his shoulders out as if needing to physically cast off one character in order to adopt another. “My Italian is not what it used to be,” he warned me.

I dealt the next hand. “Whereas as mine is exactly as it used to be. Non-existent.”

Holmes took off his hat and curved his shoulders slightly, thrusting his beak of a nose close to his cards as if short-sighted. “Benedicali, my son.”

The game continued throughout the day. Any time I thought Holmes was becoming too settled into a role, I demanded a change, until he had been every character I had ever seen him as, plus a few more besides. I think the rounds I played with Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter were the most fun, although he was not a great card player and insisted on changing the rules every five minutes.

We played until Mrs. Goodman brought out afternoon tea, when I let Holmes return to himself.

He sat back with a sigh. “I think you've exhausted me,” he said. “That takes a great deal more effort than you might imagine.”

I smiled at him over my teacup. “You could have stopped at any time.”

“And risk disappointing you?” he asked. “Never, my dear Watson.”

Oh dear, this is a frightfully long tangent. It's almost longer than the story I was intending to tell. I suppose I should really cross it out and get back to the main thread of this account, but the only people likely to read this are Holmes and myself. Holmes won't mind some rambling, as long as it's not about Mormons. He still snipes about the 'unnecessary romanticism' I indulged in while writing that section.

At any rate, on the night in question, I continued to sit in that tiny, dark shed for a great while. The cold infiltrated my dressing gown, causing the pain in my leg to begin to reach intolerable levels. That was probably why I was reminded of that week when it rained so much.

The bees all settled down to sleep, or whatever it is that bees do to rest, but I could not. Even if it had been warmer or the floor more comfortable, I still held the Queen clutched between my hands. If I accidentally hurt her, Holmes would have my head. Not to mention what the reaction of the other bees might be.

Holmes has told me that it must have been just over an hour before he returned, but it felt like an eternity. When I finally heard his voice calling my name as he opened the door, it was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

He had brought a torch, and so had Stackhurst, who was with him. When their lights burst into the shed, it felt as if they had blinded me and I had to squeeze my eyes shut. The bees did not react well either.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Stackhurst, backing away from the deepening buzz. “I thought you were joking, Holmes!”

“I would never joke about Watson's safety,” said Holmes. He stepped forward carefully. “It's okay, Watson. You can let her go now.”

I found I could not. My hands had stiffened up so that the Queen was now as trapped as I was.

“Holmes,” I said, helplessly.

He carefully knelt in front of me, reaching out for my hands. He brushed his fingers under the layer of bees that crawled over them, slowly pulling the two gloves I wore apart until he could reach inside and gently scoop up the Queen.

“You should be wearing gloves,” I said as he stood up, backing away from me, followed by a buzzing cloud.

“A few stings aren't really of importance at the moment,” he said.

The shed emptied of bees as they all followed the Queen and Holmes back to the hive. I struggled to stand once I thought I could do so without crushing any insects, but to my great shame, my leg had completely seized up and I had to be pulled up by Stackhurst.

“Up you come, Doctor,” said Stackhurst. “Honestly, if this night is an example of the kind of antics the two of you used to get up to, I'm glad I only got to know you in your retirement. Criminal gangs and swarms of bees!”

“If it helps,” I said, trying to support myself on my feet so that I could walk out of the shed under my own steam, “there were never any swarms of bees before our retirement.”

“Which is proof that we were missing out,” said Holmes. Most of the swarm had returned to the hive, but there were still a few strays buzzing around both me and him as he took my arm in a solid grip. I accepted his assistance as we all set off for our cottage, where I could still see the kitchen door standing open and light streaming out. It was the most welcoming sight I have ever seen.

“Did you deal with the criminal gang?” I asked.

“They followed me to The Gables, where we were able to trap them in the gardener's hut. They are not the most intelligent of men. Jacobs has gone to fetch the police while the other masters keep an eye on them.”

Stackhurst laughed. “I think I would have fallen for the trap you set them, Holmes. It was devious – I can't believe how quickly you came up with it!”

Holmes just gave a small shrug, as if he wasn't tickled by the repeat of praise he had spent so many years hearing from the police.

“I'm sad I missed it,” I said. 

“It took too long,” said Holmes. “I should have returned to you much faster.”

We had reached the cottage and I took advantage of the distraction of Stackhurst entering the kitchen first to clasp Holmes's hand. “You were more than fast enough. And you saved my life.”

“The bees saved your life,” Holmes corrected me. He managed a smile. “You realise that you won't be able to complain about them again, after this? They were your protectors tonight, it would be churlish of you to be unappreciative.”

I sat down on the nearest chair, sighing as the weight was taken off my leg. “I will take care to thank them every day.”

“That might be going a bit far,” said Holmes. He headed over to the stove to put a kettle of water on. “I think we need tea, don't you?”

“Christ, yes,” I said. “I'm freezing.”

Holmes eyed me for a moment, then looked at Stackhurst. “Could you fetch him a blanket? There'll be one on his bed – upstairs and to the left.”

“Of course,” said Stackhurst, and disappeared.

I stared at Holmes in panic. “Holmes!” I hissed. “My bed won't look slept in!”

He blinked and then laughed. “Of course it will,” he said, stepping to stand between my legs, which opened to allow him in while my arms circled his waist. “I rumpled the blankets while you were putting your dressing gown on earlier. You can't imagine that I would leave those criminals any clues that we break the law even more often than they do?”

I beamed at him. “You think of everything.”

“I try to,” he said. He bent down and kissed me, then straightened, wincing as he did so. It was clear that a night running around in the cold had done his ageing body just as few favours as it had mine. “I am sorry that I did not think that we might remain a target for revenge even after our retirement.”

Stackhurst's feet began to come back down the stairs and Holmes pulled away from me. I let him go with reluctance.

“I always think that if evil men hate you enough to want to kill you, you must be doing something right,” I said. He nodded agreement to that.

I suppose that is where this account should end. It is tempting to carry on, to detail how we drank tea until Stackhurst left and then went back upstairs to our bed, where Holmes rubbed life back into my leg and then proved to be a far more welcome blanket than the bees had been, but I feel it is unnecessary. It was not the first time we had done those things, after all, nor the last, whereas I intend to make sure that I am never covered by a swarm of bees again. As much as they saved my life, I do not relish the memory of their tiny feet moving over my skin.

The memory of Holmes's hands moving over my skin, however, is quite another thing. He is sitting on the sofa right now, squinting at a book with an expression of stubbornness that indicates he will not welcome a comment about reading glasses. If I finish this story here, I can suggest that perhaps it is bedtime, and then we can make more memories of that kind. Yes, that is exactly what I shall do.


End file.
